- Making pretence of superior knowledge.
- Affecting a spurious humility in worship.
- Inflated with pride.
- Dangerous to those sincerely seeking the truth.
Ver. 19. How a Church lives and grows.
I. The source of all the life of the body.—Christ is the Head, therefore the source from which all parts of the body partake of a common life. There are three symbols employed to represent the union of Christ with His Church—the vine, the body, and the marriage bond.
II. The various and harmonious action of all the parts.—1. From Jesus comes all nourishment of the Divine life, even when we think that we instruct or stimulate each other. 2. From Jesus comes the oneness of the body.
III. The consequent increase of the whole.—1. The increase of life in the Church, both as a community and in its separate elements, depends on the harmonious activity of all the parts. 2. Is dependent of the activity of all, and sadly hampered when some are idle. 3. Depends on its vitality within and on the concurrent activity of all its members. 4. Depends not only on the action of all its parts, but on their health and vitality. 5. There is an increase which is not the increase of God.
IV. The personal hold of Jesus Christ which is the condition of all life and growth.—A firm, almost desperate clutch in which Love and Need, like two hands, clasp Him and will not let Him go. Such tenacious grip implies the adhesive energy of the whole nature—the mind laying hold on truth, the heart clinging to love, the will submitting to authority.—A. Maclaren.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 20–23.
The Ceremonial in Religion Transitory and Unsatisfying.
The apostle returns again to the question of outward observances. He saw the extreme danger with which the Colossians were threatened from that source, and before turning to other matters in his epistle he lifts up a warning voice as for the last time.
I. That the ceremonial in religion is simply elementary.—“The rudiments of the world” (ver. 20). The ceremonial in religion is the alphabetical stage, suited only to the world’s infancy and to the crudest condition in human development. It is the childish period which, with all its toys and pictures and gewgaws, is put away when spiritual manhood is attained. It is in its nature transitory and imperfect. It conveys knowledge but in part; and when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part is done away.